


Evening In

by Snickfic



Series: Seraphverse [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-07
Updated: 2010-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 02:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene from <i>Seraph</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evening In

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place just after the poker night chapter of Seraph. It's a true outtake, a scene I started about three times but never could fit into the fic itself. It even has bits salvaged from the very first day I worked on Seraph, from the original first scene that bore basically no relation to the fic as it now stands.

Buffy was having a nice, quiet evening. Nobody to bother her, since everyone else was off doing their own thing, in pairs, while the other half of _her_ pair was down at the shooting range. Riley had invited her along, and for a half-second she'd considered explaining -- again -- just how much guns were not a Buffy weapon. But instead she gave him the lame excuse about all the sword-polishing and stake-sanding and general maintenance of poky objects that Giles had been bugging her about. Of course, that not only told Riley how much she really didn't want to go shooting with him -- since when did she choose weapons maintenance over, well, anything? -- but also meant she'd feel bad if she didn't actually go home and do it.

So here she was: Buffy, kitchen, whetstones, a few blades, and pop radio. Oh, yeah, she and J.Lo were having a blast.

A flicker of motion caught her eye, and she glanced up just in time to see Spike ducking out of the doorway.

Oh-kaaay.

Through the music she dimly heard him tramping up the stairs. Then down. And back in the doorway again. "Where's your mum?" he growled.

Before he'd moved in Buffy had listed all the reasons for why pregnant Spike in her basement was an apocalyptically bad idea, but somehow his sheer _moodiness_ hadn't even made the top ten. Fifteenth, maybe. "Gallery open house," she said. Before he could ask – it was always the next question – she added, "And Dawn's at Janice's."

"Hmph." He slid his hand over his shiny gelled head.

Don't ask. You don't want to know, Buffy, don't ask... "What's up?"

He scowled at her with a sort of banked fury, which made it the third time in the last week she'd seen that particular expression. Only the undead had the energy for this kind of melodrama. She lifted an eyebrow and waited.

After one more particularly furious glare, he started pulling at his shirt.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," she said, throwing her hands up in a screen. "Do not need vampire strip tease!"

But he'd only lifted the shirt high enough to show off his belly -- his huge, round baby belly -- and now he was glaring at her again.

"O-kaaay," she ventured, "what am I looking at here?"

"It's my navel."

Buffy craned her neck, peering. "I agree," she said. There it was, plain as day. Pretty hard to miss, actually.

"It's sticking out."

"Yep."

"It didn't used to!"

"Oh." No, thinking back to the visit with Stacey the One-Quarter-Demon Doctor, she guessed it hadn't. "Is that... normal? Does it mean something's wrong?" Except, normal? Not exactly a useful predictor here.

"No." He dropped the hem of his shirt and heaved a sigh. "Happens to most pregnant... people, I guess."

"But it just happened to you today." Okay, so she couldn't blame him. If _her_ inny parts randomly started popping out, she'd be Seriously Wigged Buffy.

"Well, no." He rubbed at the back of his neck with his hand. "Been working its way out for a while now."

"So..."

"I thought maybe it wouldn't, with me. Your mum's always going on about how much easier a time I'm having of it, being male. Or being dead, more's the point." Somehow the fury had all seeped away, leaving only ruefulness. "Thought maybe meeting the world navel-first was one of the things I'd miss."

"Um, Spike? Not to bruise the fragile vampire ego, but you pretty much look pregnant." She paused to wait for the snarl, but he only shrugged. "You wear sweatpants because nothing else fits and you live in my basement so the obsessed cult vamps can't get to you."

"Yeah, thanks, Slayer," said Spike, sounding exasperated. "My dignity's curled up and died on me. I get it."

"So why do you care if you have an outie?" Again, that probably came under the heading of 'things Buffy didn't actually want to know.' Stupid mouth.

"S'just, you know, this isn't supposed to be happening to me!" Abruptly, he grabbed one of the rags from her pile and started rubbing at a knife blade.

Oh. "I get that."

He flashed her an instant's skepticism. "You do?"

"I'm sorry this happened to you."

"You are?" He gave her a hard look, and then chuckled in disbelief. "You are. Will wonders never cease."

"Look, I'm the Slayer, right? I slay things. I'm good with the slaying. But this..." She gestured at him, all bloated and malformed and _pregnant_, and grimaced. "This experimenting and, and cutting demons up to make new demons and who knows what else, it's no good. They should have staked you. Not this."

"Still after my dust, Slayer?" He asked it lightly, a sparkle of real amusement in his eyes.

She rolled her eyes. "Anyway, yeah, I'm sorry."

He stared at the blade he was polishing as though he might really see himself in its mirror shine. "I'm not," he mumbled.

"What?"

He looked up, startled. Then his gaze shifted furtively away, an expression that on anyone but him, stupid contrary vampire, would have signaled a lie.

"Not sorry," he repeated. "I mean, yeah, bloody hate the chip. Don't fancy the picture of those bastards fiddling around in my innards, either. But I wouldn't have _her_ otherwise, would I?" His breath was almost a laugh. "Not just the soldier boys, either. So many ways it could have gone, and I wouldn't have her. If I'd managed to off you any of the dozen or so times I tried. If Dru hadn't kept pushing me away." His glance flickered to her and away again. "If any single one of my plans in the last three years had come off right, I wouldn't have a little one now."

Buffy eyed him carefully. "I guess."

Suddenly he looked up, eyes glinting with – oh, God – mischief. "'Course, I also wouldn't get to watch the poor, frustrated Slayer sit at home alone, fondling her stakes."

And that would be reason number two for the apocalyptic badness, right behind _Might get unchipped and kill us all in our sleep_. So much for the... bonding. Or whatever. "Go away, Spike."

"If you run out of the stakes, I've got some other suggestions—"

"_Out_." When he just stood there smirking at her, she started up from her seat, stake brandished.

He dropped the knife and rag and sidled back and out the doorway. "Just saying, Slayer..." he said, but he went.

Setting the stake aside, Buffy slathered oil on the whetstone, slid a knife from its scabbard, and drew the blade across the stone, which made a cold, prickles-on-your-neck sound that was _very_ satisfying. Kind of like therapy. Necessary, cheap, and – _shhhhck_ – vicariously violent therapy.

"Slayer?" She wiped the excess oil off with a rag, ground the blade against the stone again, and waited for him to leave, but he didn't. Finally she looked up. His hands were hooked backwards over his hips, his back arched in one of those universal pregnant-woman poses he struck without even seeming to realize it. When he caught her looking at him he straightened. "I, um." His gaze shifted away. "I don't suppose I could interest you in another backrub."

If there'd been even a hint of smirk or suggestion she'd have laughed in his face, but there wasn't. With the way he wouldn't meet her eyes, he was probably embarrassed, which, hey – great look for him. Except, don't ask her how, but somewhere along the way generic, all-purpose Spike-pain had lost its appeal.

Even if he did still need a punch in the nose.

Buffy heaved a sigh. "Let's go," she said, motioning towards the living room and pretending not to see the relief that flickered across his face.

Just a quiet evening at home for Buffy the Vampire Masseuse. Yep.

_Finis_


End file.
